


Crunch Nuts

by geoffs_band



Category: Waterparks (Band)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-03
Updated: 2018-03-03
Packaged: 2019-03-26 13:56:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13859163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/geoffs_band/pseuds/geoffs_band
Summary: Awsten outs himself as bi while live on Instagram; though unplanned, the set-up is far too good to pass up, so he goes with it.





	Crunch Nuts

**Author's Note:**

> rpf is weird
> 
> let's say this is recent-ish

Awsten Knight was twenty-something, not thirteen. 

Most days. This was not one of them.

He stared at the brightly-colored package sitting _not-so-innocently_ among the candy bars and lighters and other shit on the impulse shelf in delight as he waited for the cashier to ring up the woman in front of him. He wondered if he could find out who actually came up with the name and how he could send them a basket of cookies and Pokemon (probably). This day was full of whimsy, he'd known it from the second he woke up: first, one of his socks was enjoying life on his hand. Then his phone charger wouldn't work and the smell of his deodorant suddenly reminded him _deeply_ of bananas, so it'd been pretty obvious that he was haunted and that was just how this day was going to go. 

_Doritos Crunch Nuts_ , the package proclaimed. 

_Nacho cheese coated peanuts,_ it further enticed.

He didn't buy them because they were disgusting. Legendary, but gross. 

Maybe that would go on his tombstone one day.

Instead, he dug out his phone and snapped a picture, uploading it to Twitter. The woman in front of him moved and he locked his screen for now, setting his new charger on the counter and getting out his wallet to pay the cashier. He was still thinking about it as he walked down the sidewalk past the shoe store (oooh... no, not now) and the payday loans place with the poster of the dog happily holding a wad of money in its mouth (cute, sure, but when he does it he needs to grow up, suddenly), and remembered his started but unfinished Tweet. 

He stood to the side to let other people by while he tapped the screen to pull it back up, now wishing that he had bought the Cronch Nutz so that he could go live with them and their sheer ridickery instead of whatever comment he could select out of the fifteen or sixteen that presented themselves about the product's name. Not that he had to select only one. He was probably up to thirty or so by now.

Fuck it. He Tweeted that he would be live in a few minutes, turned back and ducked into the electronics store, and went immediately to the checkout, snatching one of the CHEESEY PEANUTS and hugging it gleefully before allowing the doubtful-looking cashier to take it from him long enough to scan it. 

Back outside on the sidewalk, he went live.

“Hi,” he said to the fifty people already watching. It jumped up to seventy, a hundred, several already greeting him in return, and he smiled as he turned toward the parking lot again. “ _Guess_ what I just got,” he said as he walked, ignored the suggestions (a puppy? Damn, now he did want a puppy. A life? Ouch. A hug? …yikes) and proudly held up his discovery. “Will y'all _look_ at this. Best two-eighty-nine I've ever spent. I might have even gone up to two- _ninety_ -nine.” He looked back at it fondly. “I'm not even going to eat them,” he went on, grinning again and noticing that the viewer count was still rapidly climbing. “Don't they look gross! This is the best—shit!”

Oops. Not paying attention, stupid, he'd walked into someone. 

“Sorry!” he said at once, hoping that the video wasn't going to be too fucked up now. Hopefully this dude would just roll his eyes at him or something and move on and he could get back into it.

Oh. Apparently not?

The older man rolled his eyes, but wait, folks, there was more! “Kids on your damn phones,” he spat.

Awsten immediately tilted his phone slightly, hoping to have the man in the frame so that his audience could suffer with him. They'd signed up for suffering the second they'd started following him, and he'd already punished them for it often enough that they were used to it.

“You never look where you're going, got your head stuck up in the clouds...” Now he stopped and seemed to really notice Awsten, giving him a clearly dissatisfied once-over. “What are you...” he began, and then stopped.

Awsten felt a little excited now; being randomly insulted by this ball-dragger that didn't realize he had like five hundred people watching him was probably going to be good. This was just the tingle for his jingle. 

“Some kinda...”

Yes?

“Dumbass...”

Good start.

“Purple...”

He knew his colors, bless him.

“Bisexual...”

...what?

“Jock asshole?”

Back up a second there, dude.

Awsten's eyebrows went up and he stared, unable to speak for a moment in the face of this. He wasn't sure if he'd ever really experienced this feeling before. This was _literally_ so fucking funny that he couldn't laugh. He was _amazed_. How did that go again. He still couldn't make a sound. He couldn't even remember _how_ to laugh!

As the professor over there gave him another curled-lip up-and-down and turned to go, Awsten slowly turned his phone back to himself, showing the now eight hundred or so people watching him his amazed face. He blinked and cleared his throat, preparing for a Declaration. 

“If that isn't going on my tombstone,” he said, “then I am _not_ dying.” 

He paused and titled his head, considering, deliberately not looking at the comments as they continued to pour in. “I guess I better start looking where I'm going, though.” 

He paused again, the last part of himself screaming that this was suicide, man, get out!! But when was he _ever_ going to get another opportunity like this? Another gift from the universe, the sickest set-up he could ever ask for?

Coming out was a joke anyway. 

“You know.” Awsten smiled slowly. “Both ways.”

_Shit._

“Uh, _BYEEE_ ,” he said quickly, and ended the feed. 

He just stood where he was for a long moment, staring down at his phone until the screen went dark and then staring down at his reflection. Most of them would take it as a joke, which was good. Some of them wouldn't. Was that also good? 

Hm.

A moment later, his phone screen came back on and displayed a message from Geoff: _???_

Of course Geoff had been watching. He was such a good dude. Awsten immediately adopted ??? as his current Mood and texted back “SDCBXDKEBGD”. Geoff would know what he meant.

Three dots, Geoff was typing. At least someone else in the world was able to move. Maybe he could stand here forever. Awsten looked around and decided that he'd like it much better if _that_ building was over _there_ , and if he was going to be impersonating a town statue for this strip mall _pro bono_ , they were going to give into his demands or he'd start impersonating those whacky waving inflatable arm-flailing tube men at potential shoppers while ominously delivering death portents, that one pro boner. Don't even try him.

Geoff: _Are you serious though?_

 _I DON'T KNOW_ , he sent back at once. He had come so close before but had turned to chickenshit like always when it came to that. Maybe it was... just fucking time.

He knew he _looked_ bi. 

His hair was fucking purple. 

Geoff was typing again, but Awsten wasn't finished.

_THE UNIVERSE WANTED ME TO IT WAS TOO GOOD I COULDN'T NOT AAAAA_

_You can make it a joke if you want, you were surprised into it and not ready that's not fair._

So validating. So supportive. 

Someone was getting a free purple Slurpee one of these days, and not the one from the 7-11.

 _Shit._ Awsten shook his head like a fucking dog to get that thought out of his head like water from his ear or a voice in the dark. He wasn't supposed to be thinking about anything like that (anything About Him) any more. Right, universe? Didn't they have a deal, and why tempt him into submission with that scary/sweet set-up only to ironically ass-blast him with what he thought he was Really Fucking Over by now.

 _NABDFGAKD_ , he said instead.

 _Yeah_ , Geoff said.

He was straight. And only straight. He'd never get it. He'd listen, sometimes, and he had— sometimes— a long time ago— once in particular— Awsten had been a more than a little drunk and had talked more than he should have maybe— and Geoff hadn't left. He'd also been back over the next day with a Gatorade and some firecrackers, and hadn't minded at all while Awsten had sipped his electrolytes, flopped to the floor and moaned like a dying whale, and just watched him attempt to light the yard on fire all morning. He was great. REALLY.

But he didn't _get it_. 

Awsten was angry at him suddenly. Fucking dickbag never had to go through any of that gay panic bullshit and the confusion that came with knowing goddamn well that he liked girls and always had and always would (they were just so _nice_ and _soft_ and _smelled good_...) but that, maybe, they weren't all.

(Guys were often _not_ nice and only sometimes smelled good. He could not currently verify any trends in softness or lack thereof.

Not yet, anyway.

Hm.)

He'd been angry at Geoff— and most of his other friends— for this before, though. It was old and tiring.

If he'd wanted new and exciting, he could have it.

All he had to do was say it wasn't a joke when he was inevitably asked.

(It wasn't, right?)

He was pretty sure there would already been fan questions and comments on it... he could most likely answer it right now if he wanted to.

(Did he?)

Awsten shifted on his feet and unlocked his phone screen again, pulling the app down to refresh slowly, and he felt the seconds it took for Instagram to refresh and show him his post were a lie, it was all actually just as long as every uncertain and weird and fucking terrifying moment of his life when he'd think That Word to himself, to try to pair it with himself, and... couldn't quite make it. Couldn't make it okay.

Another from Geoff: _Ok?_

Awsten smiled. Much better than _are you okay_. Geoff had learned that long ago and had stuck to it.

Awsten smiled a little more. He had friends and family that wouldn't turn away from him. Not all of them, but a lot, maybe. Some. Hopefully the ones that really mattered. Shit, and if they didn't, fuck them, maybe?

_Dumbass purple bisexual jock asshole._

_U DON'T KNOW ME HOMIE BUT 4/5 IS NOT BAD AT ALL!_ , he typed into the Twitter box. 

Now to post it. Or not. To be or not to be.

(What was the question?)

...bye.

**Author's Note:**

> might be continued but rn idk so im calling it closed
> 
> can yall fucKEN BELIEVE that those dorito cheese peanut things are real. JESUS


End file.
